The book of Ecclesiastes is challenging, for it considers a hard question: the author wanted to “to see what was good for mortals to do under heaven during the few days of their life” (Ecclesiastes 2:3). The book identifies its author as Qoheleth, usually translated as “the Teacher” or “the Preacher.” Traditionally this is Solomon, though the book never explicitly says so. It does identify Qoheleth as “the son of David, king in Jerusalem” (1:1), and lists off many luxuries that the king acquired for himself (2:4-8); that would fit with what we know of Solomon, but it would fit with many of his descendants as well, who were also sons, or descendants, of David.

The author struggles to come up with a positive answer, since so much human endeavor accomplishes so little. “Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?” (1:2). Should we, perhaps, seek after wisdom (as Proverbs worked so hard to teach us)? “Wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. The wise have eyes in their head, but fools walk in darkness” (2:13-14). Yet in the end the wise and the foolish are all just as dead: “the same fate befalls all of them. Then I said to myself, ‘What happens to the fool will happen to me also; why then have I been so very wise?’” (2:14-15).

Should we therefore just focus on our own happiness, while we can, since we’ll all be dead soon? But pleasure and laughter are vain and useless madness (2:1-2): an extensive collection of wine, real estate, gardens, music, wealth, and concubines (2:3-8) all adds up to nothing: “all was vanity and a chasing after wind!” (2:11). There may be “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (3:4), yet in the end we all die like dogs: “For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same: as one dies, so dies the other” (3:19).

It’s all pretty depressing; yet there is a hint of something yet to come: “I know that whatever God does endures forever … God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him” (3:14). What if, rather than each of us trying to find our own wisdom or our own pleasure, we learned instead to stand in awe, in the fear of the Lord?

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In the madness and futility of this world, O God, we need you: in the madness and futility of our own choices, we need you. We need your presence; we need your grace; we need your call; we need your peace. Come and sustain us, O God of our salvation!